And not only does DIA have an award-winning collection that came with the construction of the airport back in the '90s, but it's commissioning still more art to go with the Hotel and Transit Center (formerly known as the South Terminal Redevelopment Program), which will bring the total for the collection to $5.2 million.

"Airports have been transforming themselves from utilitarian hubs of transport to spaces in which we don't mind spending time," USA Today pronounces. "A renaissance has occurred beyond great restaurants, comfy lounges and terrific shopping, though; airports also uplift their visitors through the utilization of beautiful works of art. In this contest category, airport columnist Harriet Baskas has nominated twenty airports as contenders for Best U.S. Airports for Art."

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword, Denver’s News and Arts weekly, in 1977; she’s been the editor there ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly Colorado Public Television roundtable Colorado Inside Out, the former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies -- a post that got her an unexpected interview with former President Bill Clinton in front of a thousand people (while she was in flip-flops) -- and played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City.